Hearing the old man's words, Ian sucked in a sharp breath.
One of the greatest taboos of time travel was bringing back objects that did not belong to one's own timeline! Doing so could trigger unimaginable causal chaos!
Everyone knew that time travel came with countless prohibitions.
First, one must never interfere with or alter major historical events already known to have occurred, otherwise the timeline itself could collapse, or reality could be reconstructed.
Second, one must never meet one's past self, an encounter between the "self" of the past and the "self" of the future could result in mental collapse, energy conflicts, or a time paradox.
One could not repeatedly travel to the same point in time. One could not save the dead. One could not create a closed time loop. One could not foresee or alter one's own fate. Bringing future technology, weapons, or knowledge into the past could lead to technological explosions, power imbalance, or distortions of history. Likewise, objects from the past could not be brought into the future.
These were the forbidden laws of time travel, truths acknowledged by countless alchemists. Yet the old man before him had clearly done far more than merely violate several taboos.
It wasn't just about bringing objects back.
He had repeatedly traveled to the same point in time, interacted with his wife from the past, and all of his efforts had ultimately been directed toward accomplishing the ultimate eternal taboo.
Saving the dead.
If all the other taboos had already been shaken, then honestly, whether this taboo could also be broken and fulfilled was impossible to say. It was also one of the goals pursued by Albus Dumbledore.
"But one of the taboos of time travel is that you cannot bring back objects that don't belong to this spacetime! How did you manage it?" Ian asked urgently.
This touched upon the deepest domain of time magic.
For the first time, a trace of technical pride flashed through Musa's eyes, though it was quickly buried beneath even greater sorrow.
"You're right. The 'effects' of time cannot be completely avoided. My technique is imperfect. I cannot truly bring something from fifty years ago to fifty years later in a completely intact state. Any object I bring back, no matter how 'new' it was at the point in time I returned to, the moment it successfully crosses the barrier of time and arrives in the 'present,' the effects of time's passage immediately stack upon it."
"In other words, if I brought back a bottle of vodka produced fifty years ago, it would instantly become a bottle of liquor aged for fifty years. Cans would rust. Food would rot. They would display the traces of age they were 'meant' to have. My technique merely 'deceives' spacetime to a certain extent, allowing the transfer of matter."
He paused, his tone growing even heavier.
"I originally… did harbor selfish desires. I fantasized that if the technology became mature enough, perhaps I could… bring my wife and child back. But reality proved that it was nearly impossible. Once they were forcibly removed from their point in time and brought to the present, what kind of influence would the laws of time have on them? Would they instantly age several decades? Or simply turn to dust? I… did not dare take that risk, nor could I do it."
Clearly, the old man had once considered snatching away his wife and son from the past before they ever went to that place. When someone remains in despair for too long, they become willing to try almost anything.
However, He had not yet gone completely insane. He still retained the caution and rationality expected of a wizard.
Even though Musa's face was filled with regret, Ian felt his heart surge with excitement. Though Musa himself considered the technology immature and flawed, to Ian it was already a near-divine achievement!
To perform relatively stable time travel, and even carry matter across time itself, this far surpassed the realm of ordinary alchemy!
Throughout history, abilities like this had appeared only in someone like himself, a reincarnated Raven. This was the domain forbidden to gods, not a field mortals could casually touch.
Of course, Ian did not feel offended by it in the slightest. He was not such a narrow-minded person. He had always believed that knowledge should not be monopolized, and seeing someone actually develop such a method genuinely amazed him.
"This… this is already incredibly, unbelievably amazing, Mr. Musa!" Ian said without holding back his emotions, speaking with heartfelt admiration. "You are practically challenging the laws of time itself through your own methods! This is a miracle in the history of alchemy!"
Musa looked at the undisguised respect on Ian's face and merely gave a bitter smile, one filled with endless loneliness and emptiness. Slowly, he shook his head and turned his gaze once more toward the pot of stew that still bubbled away with soft gudu sounds. Yet it also seemed as though he was staring beyond the steaming haze, toward someplace far more distant and unreachable.
Ever since Ian had entered, the stew had been simmering there in the small courtyard.
Perhaps it had been cooking for far longer than just a day or two.
"No matter how amazing it is… what does it matter?"
His voice was as light as a sigh, yet it struck heavily against Ian's heart.
"I glimpsed a corner of the river of time. I touched fragments of the laws themselves. I even used them to make a fortune, making liquor ferment into something finer…" Musa said softly. "Yet I still could not bring back my lover and my child. I could not even learn what truly happened to them… whether, in the darkness beneath those Ice Plains, they had once suffered from hunger or cold."
The small rural courtyard fell silent once again.
The rich aroma of the stew still lingered in the air, yet it no longer carried any sense of warmth. All skill, all wisdom, all obsession, before the cold and unchangeable past, before the eternal void left by losing one's beloved, seemed so pale and powerless.
Ian looked at the old man's hunched back. What that figure carried was not the aura of a miraculous time alchemist, but the eternal regret of a husband and father who had lost his family and wandered alone through endless corridors of time for decades, yet still failed to uncover even the smallest fragment of truth.
The carefully prepared pot of stew, destined never to be eaten, seemed like the heaviest annotation to that regret.
Ian remained silent for a long time.
The evening breeze swept through the farmyard, carrying the faint fragrance of unknown flowers from afar. It mingled with the scent of meat still rising from the clay pot, yet neither could disperse the suffocating heaviness hanging between the two of them.
He looked at the old man before him, this culinary alchemist who had poured his entire life's work, endless remorse, and a sliver of hopeless hope into the mysteries of time and a humble cooking stove.
That bottomless sorrow was not a raging storm, but something quiet and ever-present, like the soil beneath the courtyard itself, soaking into every inch of passing time.
Ian finally understood.
All of Musa's research, all of his attempts, even the reason he sat here now, exposing his deepest wounds to an "outsider" like Ian, had never truly been about the seemingly impossible act of "saving" them.
Time itself had taught him that some losses, once they happened, were like water already spilled, impossible to recover, even with the power of time itself.
What he sought was no longer a miracle capable of reversing causality.
He only wanted an answer.
An answer that could allow a soul to rest.
An answer that could finally bring this long and agonizing search to an end.
Ian took a deep breath and broke the silence. His voice sounded steady and clear in the dusk.
"So, Mr. Musa, what you need from me is not to help you save them… but to enter that place on your behalf, uncover the truth behind their disappearance, and give you an answer. Is that correct?"
At this question, which pierced directly to the heart of the matter, Musa finally nodded slowly and solemnly. The deep pain in his clouded eyes seemed to settle.
In its place appeared an almost peaceful resolve, along with the relief of finally entrusting his burden to another.
"Yes, My Lord." His voice no longer trembled. Though still aged, it carried the clarity of someone who had finally accepted reality. "I know my own body well. My lifespan… i do not have much time left. I am no longer obsessed with impossible fantasies, so please… give me a clear answer."
Musa leaned slightly forward, his thin hand pressing gently against the rough wooden table, his knuckles whitening from the force.
"You, a wizard who, even in this End of Dharma Age where magical power has declined, can still step into the Legendary realm through your own strength… your power and your insight may be the only key capable of uncovering the secrets of that place."
"The barrier I could never overcome in my entire life may not be a dead end for you. I believe that if you are willing, you will be able to pierce through that chaotic space and find the clues I have searched for over hundreds of years without success."
This was a formal request.
And also the final commission of a desperate old man whose candle of life was already flickering on the verge of extinction.
Ian met his gaze but did not answer immediately. He could feel the weight of this request. This was not merely an expedition, it carried decades of obsession and the final hope of a soul.
"Let me think about it."
He considered the unfinished matters he still had on the African continent. After a moment, Ian nodded, his tone calm but certain.
"I understand, Mr. Musa. I accept this commission."
Seeing the sudden light that burst into the old man's eyes, he added:
"However, I still have several matters in Africa that I promised to handle earlier. Once I finish them, I'll immediately depart for the coordinates you mentioned."
Ian deliberately gave a precautionary warning. He truly did not know how much longer the old man had left to live.
Every wizard possessed their own methods of prolonging life.
Hearing this, Musa revealed an expression of immense relief and nodded repeatedly.
"Of course, of course! Sir, the fact that you agreed already leaves me endlessly grateful. I'm not in such a hurry… after all, I won't die tomorrow."
The old man tried to make his tone lighter, but it only revealed a deeper sense of helpless desolation.
"This old man probably still has a few years left to wait. I've already endured all these years of lonely waiting. One final stretch means little."
There was a calmness in his words that came from seeing through life and death, yet hidden beneath it was an unmistakable awareness that the end of his own life was approaching.
Ian looked at him and made a solemn promise.
"It won't take years. At the shortest, a few days; at most, a few months. Once I finish handling the urgent matters at hand, I'll set out immediately."
"I'll bring you news as soon as possible."
What surprised Ian was that Musa did not propose signing any magical contract or written agreement to bind the commission. In the wizarding world, especially when it came to such an important and potentially dangerous exploration, a magically binding contract was the standard safeguard.
However, Musa's next action completely exceeded Ian's expectations.
The old man slowly rose to his feet and walked into the house. After a while, he returned carrying a thick stack of notebooks.
The notebooks varied in style. Some had hard leather covers worn so badly the lettering could no longer be read. Others were ordinary paper booklets crudely stitched together with rough hemp thread, their edges curled and yellowed in uneven shades of brown.
Stacked together, they gave off the scent of aged paper, dried ink, and the faint lingering aroma of herbs.
Musa carefully placed the notebooks onto the table before Ian with a dull thud. Gently patting the pile of volumes that carried countless years of effort, he spoke calmly, yet with unquestionable firmness:
"My Lord, these… are the entirety of my life's work."
"They also contain all the sketches and records I possess regarding the known sections of that former Soviet underground structure, as well as some of my speculations concerning its spatial anomalies…"
"Now, they are yours."
The old man was actually handing over the payment in advance.
Ian froze completely. He stared at the pile of notebooks before him, treasures beyond price, then looked back at the calm-faced Musa, momentarily unable to speak.
This payment…
No, it could no longer even be called payment.
This was the crystallization of a researcher's entire life of wisdom.
"Mr. Musa… you…" Ian was rarely this moved, and he could not help but remind him, "You're giving these to me now? Before we've even signed any contract? Aren't you afraid that… I might simply take them and leave without fulfilling my promise?"
It truly defied common sense.
Such priceless knowledge, handed over so casually in advance, what kind of trust did that require?
Or perhaps… what kind of desperate gamble born from despair?
Seeing the genuine shock on Ian's face, Musa instead revealed a faint smile tinged with detachment. He slowly shook his head, his gaze deep and distant.
"Afraid? Of course, I was afraid. But, sir, I choose to believe."
"I believe that a man who, in this End of Dharma Age, reached the Legendary realm not through bloodlines or external artifacts, but solely through his own understanding of and devotion to magic… possesses a character and pride far beyond that of someone who would betray his word."
"Your promise is more trustworthy to me than any magical contract."
He paused, his eyes sweeping over the stack of notebooks. A trace of complicated emotion flashed through them before ultimately becoming relief.
"Besides… even if, and I mean if, you truly did 'run away,' then what of it? If these remain with me, once I die, they will ultimately turn to dust as well. Or perhaps some ignorant descendant will burn them as waste paper."
"But if I hand them to you, a living Legendary wizard, perhaps they may shine in ways I never imagined possible."
"At the very least… in my pursuit of the answer, I have already given everything I could give."
"I… have done my best."
By the end, his voice had gradually lowered, and unmistakable exhaustion appeared on his face.
It was not merely physical fatigue.
It was the immense spiritual exhaustion that came after chasing an unattainable goal through endless years.
Entrusting away the work of his entire life seemed to have taken away part of the force sustaining him.
Ian looked at the old man's eyes, which held a mixture of trust, entrustment, exhaustion, and faint relief, and his expression turned solemn.
He stood up.
Without offering any grand or passionate vows, he simply bowed slightly and respectfully toward Musa, expressing through that gesture alone that he would absolutely uncover the truth for him.
Ian had always possessed great confidence in his own strength.
And this was not the first time he had entered a secret realm.
Musa nodded quietly, as though he no longer even wished to spend energy speaking, using only his gaze to convey gratitude and trust.
Seeing the old man's exhaustion deepen, his frail body almost leaning against the edge of the table for support, Ian knew it was time to leave.
Carefully, he stored the heavy stack of notebooks in his magical satchel. A flash of flowing light shimmered across its surface as the vast treasury of knowledge disappeared into the expanded space hidden within.
These things…
They were far more precious than potion ingredients.
Had Ian never come here, they might have vanished forever into the river of time, the final testament of a wizard's wisdom, containing within it a story about love.
(End of Chapter)
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